Aarp Presses For Rx Cost Relief

National Poll Bolsters Group's Lobbying Effort

July 15, 2004|By William E. Gibson Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON — While lobbying hard on Capitol Hill, AARP released a nationwide survey on Wednesday indicating that four of every five older Americans support a change in the law to allow importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and other nations.

AARP, the 35-million-member advocacy group for Americans age 50 and older, is using the poll to press Congress into passing a bill during this election year to provide a cheaper alternative to the U.S. market.

AARP is rallying around a bipartisan bill -- sponsored by Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. -- that would set up a certification process for legally importing medicines from selected nations with government drug standards similar to those of the United States.

The House on Tuesday approved a separate measure, tucked into an agriculture spending bill, that would prevent the government from enforcing the current ban on imported drugs.

The Senate bill is designed to expand on a Medicare law enacted last year, with the support of AARP, that established drug benefits but excluded provisions designed to rein in prices.

"This is just one of the steps that need to be taken to tighten up the bill last fall," said Bentley Lipscomb, Florida state director of AARP, who came to Washington as part of the lobbying effort. "We knew when it passed it was not perfect but the first step in what needed to be done to grant some protection to older people who were just being pulverized by what they pay for drugs."

The poll, conducted last weekend by Knowledge Networks with a sample of 1,267 people age 50 and older, found that 79 percent believed importation should be legalized. Nine percent said it should not, and 13 percent were unsure. The poll had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

Drugmakers strongly oppose the bill, citing concerns from the Food and Drug Administration that it would lead to importation of counterfeit and unsafe drugs.

"Canada has been used as a post office box for medicine manufactured in other nations like South Africa, where one in five medicines has been found to be counterfeit," said Court Rosen, spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "It simply is not safe. And the FDA has made clear they think it would compromise the integrity of the American drug supply."

A certification process would only lead to creation of counterfeit documents, the drugmakers argue.

Some members of Congress say they hope to reconcile constituents' demands for more affordable drugs with concerns about safety.

"If we are going to go forward, Congress should direct the FDA to set up a process by which they could make that certification," said Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale. "Safety comes before price, but price is very important."

William E. Gibson can be reached at wgibson@sun-sentinel.com or 202-824-8256 in Washington.